Collecting By Engraver

I remember reading a lot of negative comments about this Shakespeare stamp in Linn's shortly after it was issued in 1964.
Many complained the design was too cluttered and some didn't like the tinted paper, others said it didn't look like Will.
Actually no one even today really knows for sure what Shakespeare
looked like.

Scott 1250







Designed by Douglas Gorsline
Engraved by Charles Brooks (vignette) William R Burnell (lettering)

Perf14 - My approach is to only buy the stamps that I like, and not to worry about completion for any particular engraver. Fortunately, there are many attractive yet also inexpensive engraved stamps out there to collect, such as the four beauties lithograving has just posted above.

lithograving - Sure thing: The Arizona Statehood stamp was engraved by Arthur W. Dintaman (vignette) and G.A. Payne (lettering). Nice memory about the Winslow Homer stamp; it is among the most popular USA stamps of all time. I plan to include images of other great stamps engraved by Bower, Brooks and Dintaman in future posts.

Yes that would be great. The BEP certainly had a lot of talented engravers during the fifties and sixties.

One thing nethryk, what model of scanner do you have and at
what DPI do you scan?
Your scans are so very sharp and almost life like.
Absolutely superb.

Super stuff! I'm not really sure why I've been skipping this thread, as the general topic is right up my alley. The Topical forum went crazy over the last month or two...that's my excuse.

I massage all of my scans so that they fit within the forum size limit (so that they are always around, as long as the forum is around), but this thread is causing me to rethink that.

Very nice work!

C.

More, please...

Dante Alighieri 700th Anniversary
San Francisco, CA - July 17, 1965 - 115,340,000 issued

Designer: Douglas Gorsline - Engraver: A. W. Dintaman

Experimenting with 2400 SPI scan.

20¢ Black Post Office Truck
Washington, D.C. - Nov.30, 1951

Nice scans stallzer, I like the Dante Alighieri stamp because it
has crisp, clear engraving.

If I try scanning at 2400dpi it takes forever & usually freezes.
Maximum for me is 1200dpi for engraved stamps but I can go down to
600 or 800dpi for photogravure or offset stamps as well as
for covers and post cards.

Thanks for your comments, nethryk, you certainly know the topic inside out and any advice is greatly appreciated and valued. I wasn't even hoping of completing any one particular engraver, but to aim to have representative examples from each engraver even if it just consisted of an issue or two. So, this thread is an excellent source of information, impossible to find anywhere else without hours/days/weeks of searching.

Thanks heaps to all the posters.

I love the Winslow Homer painting, he has captured the sudden surge of the boat as it pickks up more wind beautifully, down to the slight broach of the rudder. Fantastic! I notice that the stamp is a very faithful reproduction of the painting...except for the boat's name on the stern, I wonder why the engravers left that out.

alex

The SCF Community is in for a real treat now that Nethryk has joined us. As all will see his knowledge and passion for the beautiful engraved pieces is second to none.

lithograving - According to Gene Hessler, author of The International Engraver's Line, J.A.C. Harrison (1872-1955) never worked for the printing firm Harrison & Sons, which was founded circa 1790. The precocious and brilliant J.A.C. was first employed by Waterlow's, then went free-lance around 1900, did some work for Perkins, Bacon, and ultimately, with offers from ABNCo. and Australia in hand, chose instead to return to Waterlow's as chief portrait engraver.

Thanks for your compliments on the quality of my stamp images. My scanner is an Epson Perfection V300 Photo, operating in professional mode. I generally scan individual engraved stamps in 48 colors at 1200 dpi (stepping down to 600 dpi for covers and larger pieces.) Then I edit each image in Picasa3 with the straightening and cropping tools, and finish by using the shadowing tool to tune the image to match the original stamp's color depth as closely as possible before saving to file.

Perf14 - You're most welcome. I'm generally limiting my posted images on this thread to a maximum of six per engraver to keep the amount of time I'm spending hunched over my scanner at least half-way reasonable. After all, I am also still posting images on a couple of other websites.

stallzer - Thanks.

And nice stamps! Let's keep these gorgeous stamp images rolling right along.

- nethryk

Another worthy Italian stamp engraver (incisore) is Mario Colombati. Over some 20 years, starting in the late 1940s, Colombati produced a number of fine stamps for both Italy and the Vatican City. Here are images of some examples of his engraving work.

- nethryk

Garibaldi, after an equestrian statue by sculptor Rafaello Romanelli, issued on December 24, 1957, Scott No. 734.


Peasant woman, dams and map of Sardinia, issued on February 1, 1958, Scott No. 738.


Eleonora Duse (1858–1924), actress, issued on December 11, 1958, Scott No. 760.


After the Battle of Magenta (June 4, 1859), detail from 1861 painting by Giovanni Fattori, issued on June 27, 1959, Scott No. 779.


Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), artist, issued on November 25, 1960, Scott No. 811.


Gian Domenico Romagnosi (1761-1835), philosopher, economist and jurist, issued on November 28, 1961, Scott No. 847.

nethryk

I've used Picasa 3 for straightening but haven't used the
shadowing tool. Guess it's time to experiment.

My scanner is a Epson 4490 Photo which is I believe similar to your
V300.

There is a line in the movie The Russia House (based on a John Le Carre book of the same name) where boozy Barley Blair (played by Sean Connery) says something like "not even in his class". This thread reflects that and again I can't thank you guys enough for your descriptions as I will be able to search for things in this thread for years to come.

I must also mention as an aside another item that pertains again to the above-mentioned book and movie. You know how something new usurps something old. The protagonist in The Russia House book was called Goethe but in the movie his name was changed to Dante. So now Dante as depicted by the stamp above and The Russia House Dante sort of teeter-totter in my mind.